Also note that FoxNews didn’t talk about this story until the White House had already moved on it, which Chris Matthews points out. Anderson Cooper admitting? Bravo.

On Thursday’s Anderson Cooper 360, anchor Anderson Cooper faulted himself for not pressing Shirley Sherrod when she appeared on the show back on July 22 and claimed that conservative Andrew Breitbart was a “vicious” racist who “would like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery.”

Cooper now says he should have challenged Sherrod to support such an inflammatory charge with facts: “I believe in admitting my mistakes….I didn’t challenge her that night and I should have.”

[….]

COOPER: I interviewed Shirley Sherrod last Thursday. And in the course of that interview, I failed to do something that I should have. I believe in admitting my mistakes. I looked at the interview again today, and Ms. Sherrod said during that interview that she thought Mr. Breitbart was a racist. She said, quote, “I think he would like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery.” She went on to say she believed his opposition to President Obama was based on racism. Now, she, of course, is free to believe whatever she wants, but I didn’t challenge her that night and I should have.

I don’t want anyone on my show to get away with saying things which cannot be supported by facts. I should have challenged her on what facts she believes supports that accusation. That’s my job, and I didn’t do it very well in that interview, and I’m sorry about it. If I get a chance to talk to her again, I will.

Fadlallah, Lebanon’s top Shiite Muslim cleric who was once regarded as the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, has a long history of supporting terrorism against the U.S. and Israel. He was accused, for example, of masterminding the 1983 U.S. Marine barracks bombing. Although he had strenuously denied any connection to the attack, he continued to publicly support anti-American and anti-Israeli attacks.

He also supported the seizure and hostage-taking at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and has been known to praise Palestinian suicide bombings.

He has said of America, “In its policy that aspires to impose hegemony on the world is an evil with no good in it.”

News media reports claim that in recent years Fadlallah drifted away from radical Islamist politics and has espoused policies of moderation.

However, media watchdog HonestReporting.com points out that he praised the Palestinian shooting massacre of eight Israeli students at a Jerusalem yeshiva on March 6, 2008, and has praised Iran’s efforts to build long-range missiles as the “pride of the Islamic world” in 2008.

Just last week, Reuters reported that when asked what he needed by a nurse at the Lebanese hospital in which he was being treated, Fadlallah replied: “For the Zionist entity to cease to exist.”

Fadlallah also has engaged in Holocaust denial.

In a March 2008 interview with Al-Manar TV Fadlullah stated, “Zionism has inflated the number of victims in this holocaust beyond imagination. They say there were six million Jews – not six million, not three million, or anything like that. … But the world accepted this [figure], and it does not allow anyone to discuss this.”

Fadlallah survived several assassination attempts, including a 1985 car bombing near his south Beirut home that killed 80 people. During Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon, Fadlallah’s residence was bombed and reduced to rubble by Israeli warplanes. Fadlallah was not at home.

Nasr, meanwhile, has a history of controversial remarks on terrorism, WND has learned.

In 2006, while serving as CNN’s senior editor for Arab affairs, Nasr stated in an online CNN interview that “terrorism for one person is a freedom fight for another.”

“So, you know, if you think about it, ‘terrorism’ is a subjective term depending on which side you are on,” Nasr continued.

Nasr previously worked for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, a brainchild of Lebanon’s former President Bashir Gemayel. At the time of the LBC’s founding in 1985, the pro-Western Gemayel was leader of the Lebanese Army.